•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.

The universe is not static. Every living species evolved from an earlier species. All species are “interim.” Either a species evolves or it dies. No species remains permanent.

To what are we humans interim? Are we those dinosaurs, whose fate was a dead end, or are we those dinosaurs, whose fate was to continue as birds?

Or both?

Despite Buck Rogers, despite Star Trek, despite Star Wars, homo sapiens may never fulfill our dream of colonizing the distant reaches of our solar system — Pluto or even the moons of Saturn — much less planets of other stars, and even much, much less, planets in other galaxies.

So when the earth is destroyed, either by our own hands, or by meteors or by a swelling sun, we will have found nowhere to hide — even if we still exist.

By Antonio Regalado on January 14, 2015Electronic brain interfaces may give paralyzed people control over their environments.

A few paralyzed patients could soon be using a wireless brain-computer interface able to stream their thought commands as quickly as a home Internet connection.

Researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio, thought commands collected from a brain implant.

Implants in the brains of paralyzed people show that electrical signals emitted by neurons inside the cortex could be recorded, then used to steer a wheelchair or direct a robotic arm.

The new interface is attached to the skull and wired to electrodes inside the brain. Inside the device are circuits to digitize the information, and a radio to beam it to a receiver. There, the information is available to move a cursor across a computer screen.

Although the implant can transmit the equivalent of about 200 DVDs’ worth of data a day, that’s not much information compared to what the brain generates in executing even the simplest movement.

Of the billions of neurons in the human cortex, scientists have never directly measured more than 200 or so simultaneously. “You and I are using our brains as petabyte machines,” says Nurmikko. “By that standard, 100 megabits per second is going to look very modest.”

The Brown scientists have plans to try it on paralyzed patients, but haven’t yet done so.

Eventually, scientists say, all the electronics will have to be implanted completely inside the body, with no wires reaching through the skin, since that can lead to infections.

Last year, the Brown researchers reported testing a prototype of a fully implanted interface, with the electronics housed inside a titanium can that can be sealed under the scalp.

That device is not yet commercialized.

Machines are stronger and faster than we are. And can do some “thinking” processes faster and more accurately than we can. So what should we do about that?

I. We could develop better brain/computer interfaces, allowing us to control machines with our minds, while experiencing what they experience.

The machines would handle the physicality — play games, explore, work — while we direct them.

Rather than sending rudimentary “rovers” to alien planets, or trying to send people on the dangerous and costly journeys to those planets, imagine that instead, we send robot surrogates. We not only control them with our minds, but we see, feel, hear, smell and taste what they do, all in the safety and comfort of our living rooms.

Would our brains and bodies naturally evolve, to better accommodate brain/computer interfaces? Would we intentionally evolve our brain and body genetics to do that?

Will, over time, our frail, illness and accident-prone bodies become unnecessary, even a liability, as the merger of our brains and machines evolves?

Consider that devices like today’s incredible “smart” phones and mind control over prostheses surely would have seemed unlikely science fiction a mere 100 years ago.

So, if you visualize our future being rows upon rows of glass jars, each containing a living human brain, tended by machines, as the evolutionary future of humankind — well, why not?

Or:

II. We can continue improving machines to mirror our thinking processes. Watson, the computer that answers questions posed in natural language and which beat human contestants in the show, “Jeopardy,” is a step in that direction.

Rather than evolving our brains and bodies to accommodate brain/computer interfaces, will we simply evolve machines to match and then exceed our brains?

Currently, we head in both directions — creating better brain/machine interfaces and creating better “thinking” machines — both of which have the potential to end the homo sapiens line, while continuing the memories, thoughts, goals and accomplishments that make us human.

Humanity would continue, but not as a species — only in surrogate form.

At what point does our morality become an important consideration?

Today, we strive to prevent the eradication of species, and we lament our failures. Many species disappear each year, and we mourn their passing. We speak of “endangered species” and try to save them.

We view the eradication of species (except for certain viruses and mosquitos) as not only being uneconomic, but immoral (according to the morality we ourselves have invented).

What right, we ask, do we have to play God by ending a species line?

Yet, we endanger our own species, not only with pollution, climate change and wars, but with scientific advances in computer and biological technology that will end the homo sapiens species.

If we are making our species obsolete, is this an immoral thing or a necessary and inevitable result of the brains we have been given?

What are the economic and moral considerations?

All species are interim, thus we are interim, thus our morality is interim. Are we, on this “pale, blue dot,” here by some greater design, to be one in a long line of Interim Species that eventually colonizes and unites the universe?

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions begin an average of 2 years after the blue line first dips below zero. There was a dip in 2015.

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.